No Strings Attached Directed by: Ivan Reitman Starring: Natalie Portman, Ashton Kutcher, Kevin Kline Rating: R Release Date: January 21, 2011
TRAILER SCORE: 1/10
MY THOUGHTS: Two words: Puerile. Garbage.
What's wrong with Kevin Kline? This is so depressing. What's wrong with Natalie Portman? Again, depressing. What's wrong with Ashton Kutcher? Well, nothing, this is par for the course for him -- so I guess there's really nothing to be depressed about, other than the fact that Kevin Kline and Natalie Portman are sinking to Ashton Kutcher's level. It's all so depressing. This is civilization in decline. Ahh! The sky is falling!
OK, let me back up a bit -- I think I got off on the wrong foot. What I was trying to say is, this trailer is denser than a neutron star, it's dafter than the branch davidians, it's about as pure an insult to one's intelligence as one can handle without flying off the handle -- err, wait, did I just fail to maintain my hold on the proverbial handle, did I just fly off the handle?
I hated this trailer. I loathe when writers feel the need to drop "f#ck" into every single line; it's a sign of poor writing, and a sign of poor taste too. It's a sign of having a thick skull. If you're easily amused by people's orifices and bodily functions and casual sex habits and by simple words that you can't say in a green band trailer, then apparently this is the film for you. The attitudes and language portrayed in the trailer were severely depressing.
Somewhere Beavis and Butthead are watching this trailer chuckling, "huhhuh, huhhuh, this is cool." Mike Judge's prophecies continue to come true. We're not as far off from Idiocracy as we'd like to believe. The brilliant thing about Mike Judge is how he can ironically and effectively employ social commentary amidst puerile garbage. He makes comedies that appeal to everyone on some level; his highbrow and lowbrow are mixed expertly. Much of Judge's lowbrow humor seems secretly self-deriding, he does not revel in the base, he uses the base to make fun of the base. Where I'm sure his more intelligent viewers realize certain aspects of his comedy are slagging off the lowbrow through his lowbrow jokes (the comedy is set up to laugh at those who laugh at such), I'm afraid many of the lowbrow division fail to even come close to comprehending such nuance. Such dim-wits continue to laugh at idiotic jokes like the one delivered in this trailer by the fittingly-named Ludacris, "Ya see, I like to be kinda scary, like BOO, here comes my d#ck!" Man, that's just straight up hilarious. Just so sharp witted, I'm stunned. This trailer is a celebration of the ill-tended mind.
Another major issue I have here: As of late 2010, Natalie Portman has become severely over-exposed (in more ways than one). I'm so tired of seeing her, and I never thought I'd say that; she used to be one of my biggest Hollywood crushes. I suppose this is mostly due to the fact that the supply and demand model cannot be defeated -- when an actress appears in five films (Black Swan, No Strings Attached, Your Highness, Thor, The Other Woman) over the course of less than six months, it stands to reason that the demand for said actress is going to plummet like a stone. The quantity/quality question bubbles to the surface here too; it doesn't matter who the actor/actress is. Portman rocked in Black Swan, but that was only because I hadn't seen this trailer yet, and also because anything Darren Aronofsky touches turns to gold. While we're still in this "never thought I'd say that" paragraph, I'd like to add that I think Portman comes across as sexually repugnant in this trailer -- her character just grosses me out, what can I say? Dumb sluts gross me out, and that's the character she chose to play this time around. Great choice, great choice.
If you ask me, thanks to No Strings Attached, Kevin Kline, Natalie Portman and Ivan Reitman have all brought shame upon their houses. Hopefully we can still fall back on Ivan's son, Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking, Juno, Up in the Air). Hopefully he's still using his brain, and if so, I sure hope he can redeem the Reitman family name.
I was saving my first 1/10 for the appropriate moment, and here it is. This was easily the worst trailer I've ever seen in my life. I wouldn't see this film even if Natalie Portman herself called me up and invited me to partake in a sneak peak at her Hollywood manor. Honestly, I wouldn't -- and that's depressing.